


Our Life is a Playlist (just waiting to be burned)

by AnNee



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 23:09:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1203979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnNee/pseuds/AnNee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen and Jared have a plan. Marry their friends to keep their relationship a secret. Genevieve is all kinds of crazy, Jared's scared of God and Chad fucking hates blue, but it'll all be okay if they just keep smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Life is a Playlist (just waiting to be burned)

_**Who has to know?  
When we live such fragile lives  
It’s the best way to survive…** _

  
  
The thing you’ve got to remember is, it’s all just bullshit.  
  
This line of work, this lifestyle, this industry… It’s all just smoke and mirrors.  
  
When Jensen first started out, he was a little more jaded than a newbie, eighteen-year-old soap star should have been. He likes to think he has his father to thank for that.  
  
Jensen remembers being jittery and sick with nerves as he sat down for his first interview with _Soap-Opera-Something_ ; because for all his bravado, for all his bleached hair and cocky jibes and _aw shucks_ smiles, Jensen has always been kinda shy.  
  
He doesn’t like people looking at him, wondering about him, prodding him to spill his secrets. That's probably why his mother had outright cackled when, at all of six years old, Jensen had announced his life’s career goal, clutching the Pre-K class production leaflet of ‘ _Robin Hood_ ’ in one chubby hand.  
  
 _‘Sure thing, baby,_ ’ she had said, all feigned sincerity while her bright eyes danced with laughter. _‘You go be an actor.’_  
  
But funnily enough, Jensen’s shyness had never extended to the stage. It was something he discovered that first time, six years old and clad in olive green tights, clutching a cardboard sword on a bid to save Maid Marion.  
  
When Jensen is acting, he isn’t shy because when Jensen is acting, he isn't _Jensen_. He’s someone else altogether. Someone with his own name and his own phobias and his own secrets to hide. And Jensen _loves_ that.  
  
Jensen _loves_ acting.  
  
It’s all the frilly bullshit that comes with it that he despises.  
  
 _‘If you can’t impress them with intellect,’_ his father had told him, _‘then baffle them with bullshit.’_  
  
And boy had he.  
  
It’s not that Jensen is a _liar_. It’s just that…well…sometimes the truth falls kinda flat. His agent has a remarkably blunter way of putting it, if Jensen remembers rightly.  
  
 _‘The truth is **great** , honey, don’t get me wrong, but the truth... Well, the truth rarely sells rags.’_  
  
And so Jensen has learnt, through lots of mediocre advice and abundant strings of trial and error, that sometimes it’s easier and quicker and far more beneficial just to embellish. Or deny. Or shrug and laugh and flash a panty-dropping grin and deviate entirely before anyone’s half the wiser.  
  
Of course, Jensen has the luxury of having a professional actor as a father and almost a decade in the industry to perfect his craft. Some relatively younger and more unscathed up-and-comers (and by _some_ , Jensen actually means one floppy-haired, overly energetic, twenty-two-year-old with the subtlety of a freight train named Jared Padalecki) don’t possess that luxury.  
  
It doesn’t help that Jared probably couldn’t embark on a deceitful lie to save his dogs’ lives. He has the kind of brain-to-mouth wiring that’s usually reserved for three-year-olds and the consistently drunk, and Jensen might be persuaded to find it utterly adorable if it wasn’t so goddamn dangerous.  
  
 _“Oh, yeah, you’re the guy from Dark Angel, right? You know I used to jerk off to Jessica Alba on the front cover of that box set? You were on there too, right? That means I’ve masturbated to you by proxy, man, I feel like we’ve bonded already!”_ Were the words out of Jared’s mouth within the first three minutes of them meeting, followed swiftly by: _“Oh, well, don’t worry, man, we’ve got tons of time to work you into my jerk off fantasies”_ when Jensen had perplexedly informed him that no, he didn’t think he was on the front of that particular box set.  
  
Usually, it was much of the same stuff. Random thought processes that normal people might consider saying out loud, but after running them through their inbuilt thought-to-voice filters, decide that _no_ , it probably wasn’t necessary or appropriate for other people to hear that particular snippet.  
  
Jared’s filter is somewhat skewed, is all.  
  
And yeah, in regular, everyday life that might result in nothing more than a few home truths being spilt and the occasional bout of social awkwardness, but Jensen has found that Jared often fails to understand that the two of them aren’t actually living a Regular-Joe kinda life. They’re actually living a decidedly more erratic and Technicolor life, filled with camera phones and nosy reporters and paparazzi who are absolutely _not_ above clawing through garbage for old pizza boxes and condom wrappers.  
  
Usually, it isn’t the be all and end all that Jensen likes to make it out to be. After twenty minutes in the guy’s presence, you're rendered pretty much immune to it. Four years in, Jensen barely even picks up on it anymore.  
  
Infact, Jensen had learnt pretty quickly how to skate over all the random, useless Jared-isms and pause to (a) make encouraging _‘I’m listening_ ’ noises in the right places, (b) absorb the actual point of the story being relayed, and (c) write down important hidden messages that pop up unexpectedly, such as missed phone calls, impending script changes, and upcoming rent payments.  
  
And okay, _sure_ , most of those messages are usually buried between disjointed stories of Sadie’s last vet visit, giddy reports of whatever milestone his niece has just hurdled, and the off-key crooning to whatever happens to be on the radio, but the point usually, most of the time, _almost always_ gets across - despite Jared’s bouts of verbal incontinence.  
  
And really, Jared gets away with it in a way that few people ever could.  
  
 _Usually_ , it’s all just part of the Padalecki charm.  
  
 _Usually_ , Jensen isn’t watching his entire shiny, smoke-distorted façade crumble in front of his eyes because of one misjudged pause in a conversation that also happens to be an interview with E! _Today._  
  
And really, if he’s being honest with himself, Jensen should have been prepared for this.  
  
The day hadn’t started off on the best footing.  
  
His alarm had broken sometime before 7.30 am, which meant that Jared’s alarm had, in turn, broken at some point before 7.30am, as well. That subsequently meant that they had woken up late, forcing Jared to forgo his morning run, which meant the dogs had been just as whiny and wired as Jared, but instead of just dragging their feet and omitting agitated moaning sounds like their owner, they proceeded to show their distress by overturning their breakfast dishes, spilling the food all over the kitchen floor, and trampling it out into the back yard.  
  
No one had time for a decent cup of coffee; Jared hadn’t been offered anything in the vicinity of breakfast before being hustled out of the house, and then, of course, their interviewer had to be a tiny, eager up-and-comer with sharp, pointed features and an attitude to match.  
  
The first question out of her mouth just had to be about their hastily-made living arrangements and just _had_ to be directed towards an unfed, under-caffeinated Jared, who was trying and failing to flag down a waitress with sleepy, unfocused eyes and a tight frown.  
  
Things only seemed to nosedive from there.  
  
“ _Uh…_ ”  
  
The interviewer, who had introduced herself as Carly Mathews, had been the image of detached professionalism until this point: Long, dark hair pulled back into some kind of complex twist, face impassive but polite, and a dark blue pant suit pressed to crisp perfection.  
  
She's become suddenly immobilized opposite them, one set of manicured fingernails clutching her tape recorder and the other curled around a black biro hovering uncertainly over a notepad, mid-scrawl.  
  
This was her first report assignment, she’d told them, most likely applying the whole _‘See how warm and open I am as a person, now kindly return the favour, assholes’_ technique a lot of younger reporters liked to try out.  
  
She might be young, but she’s far from stupid.  
  
Anyone who’s been on the job for more than five minutes could have picked up on the stuttering, uncertain pause that screamed _‘Story! Headline! Promotion opportunity!’_ to any reporter with half an ounce of creative mojo and a functional pair of eyes.  
  
Jensen feels the exact moment Jared realises it, but he refrains from averting his gaze from where it’s pinned to the back of the booth, slightly to the left of Carly Mathew’s gaping expression. Lingering glances, pointed glares, and muffled curses probably wouldn’t help their case at that point, Jensen’s certain.  
  
Of course, Jared tries to grin and laugh and discard it with a joke and a nudge and a _‘really, piss-your-pants-funny story’_ about on-set shenanigans, but the damage has already been done and none of it does any good because Jared isn’t skirting around the truth with half-fibs and cute smiles and baffling bullshit anymore.  
  
Now Jared’s having to outright _lie_. To this reporter and to his Momma, and to every future reader of E! _Today_ , as well as to the rest of the suddenly interested diners who are beginning to turn in their seats as Jared’s nervous, chattering tone increases in pitch and volume.  
  
And Jared has never been very good at the kind of outright lying that wasn’t typed out on paper and rehearsed in a read-through beforehand. Because when Jensen is being _Jensen_ , Jensen is kinda shy. And when Jared was being _Jared_ , well, he tends to be pretty damn transparent when it comes to his inner workings.  
  
No smoke, no mirrors, no honest-to-God bullshit to pad out his truths. Just Jared: the 6-foot-4 motor mouth with everyone’s best intentions at heart.  
  
But Jensen always remembers what his grandmother used to say about paths paved with good intentions and really, statistically, Jensen has known that there were only so many of these interview things they could do without something slipping.  
  
So here they are, crammed into a booth in some no-name diner, with Jared trying to bat away every question as fast as it’s thrown and Carly Mathew’s smile becoming downright menacing as she scribbles away.  
  
And in the end, all Jensen can do is sit back and watch them burn.  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
It takes three hours and twenty-four minutes for Jensen’s phone to buzz to life.  
  
He knows because he’s been über-aware of its presence, pressed against the top of his thigh since the second they’d left the diner. He’s been internally programmed to ‘high alert’ for the onslaught of activity, and honestly, it's taken longer than he thought.  
  
Carly must be _really_ new at this.  
  
“Are you fucking _kidding_ me with this?”  
  
Jensen sighs at his publicist’s bark. Maggie Styne had long since perfected rolling ‘supremely shrill’ and ‘dangerously sinister’ into one measured tone and it kind of terrifies him.  
  
“Look, I don’t…”  
  
“No, you don’t!” she barks, and Jensen can hear papers being shuffled and keyboards being tapped on and the bustle of an office behind her. She’s constantly in motion whenever Jensen sees her; always transferring calls and signing forms and thunderously shouting coffee orders at random office staff. She’s a good publicist, the best at her job and Jensen has always equally admired and feared her for it. That’s the only reason he can think of to account for the way all the hair is suddenly standing up on the back of his neck, even though she’s on the other end of a phone, halfway across town.  
  
“You _don’t_ think! You don’t plan or pause or think of consequences or listen to any _fucking_ professional talking perfect sense to you! You just act. Just let half-formed, fuckwit sentences slip out of your mouth to the absolute _worst_ person at the absolute _worst_ time…”  
  
Jensen clears his throat timidly. “Uh… Actually, it was _Jared_ …”  
  
“Well, yeah, I know exactly who it’ll have been!” Maggie snaps immediately, not even pausing for breath. “Jared’s fucking motor-mouth is hardly front page news! What it was sucking last night definitely will be thanks to you!”  
  
“Me!” Jensen takes a second to feign outrage. “How the fuck is this my fault? _You_ set up the interview.”  
  
“Which you insisted be a fucking double act. Off set. With no prep time!”  
  
Jensen chews on his thumbnail. “Yeah, okay, that was my bad.”  
  
Her exhale could freeze ice “I don’t think you understand just _how_ bad it is, Jensen.”  
  
Jensen’s stomach tightens slightly at her tone and his eyebrows knit together in foreboding. “Well how bad can it get? I mean, we laugh it off, we call her a liar and you wave your magic wand…”  
  
Even as he says it, he feels about six years old; if he closes his eyes, he'll disappear completely. In his head, he hears his mother humouring him in that voice of hers: _‘Sure thing, baby, you go wave your magic wand.’_  
  
Maggie is somewhat more upfront and LA-savvy than his momma.  
  
“Harry fucking Potter doesn’t have a wand big enough to wave this one away,” she says gravely. “Where’s Jared?”  
  
Jensen rubs his hand over his stomach as if it can ease the sudden ache there. “Uh, he got a call from his agent…”  
  
Maggie cuts him off before he can say anymore. “Good, then he’s on his way in.”  
  
“Uh…” Jensen flounders for a moment, even though Maggie sounds calmer and more practical than she has the entire conversation “On his way _where_?”  
  
“On his way _here_.” Maggie pauses and Jensen remembers the steaks in their freezer, the movie times circled in highlighter pen in the newspaper on the coffee table, the park they’re supposed to take the dogs to this afternoon.  
  
He remembers the stupid, clingy way Jared had leaned into his side on the drive over that morning. A warm, solid, sleepy weight that had made Jensen smile and press his face into the dark hairs tickling his cheek.  
  
He clears the hitch from his throat. “This is bad, isn’t it?”  
  
Maggie is quiet and Jensen realises that he much prefers her screaming and belligerent “Just be here in fifteen minutes.”  
  
He sighs, sensing the familiar tone to her voice immediately “What for?”  
  
“Damage control”

 

 

_**if i should call you up  
invest a dime  
and you say you belong to me  
and ease my mind...** _

  
  
  
  
  
There’s a saying that goes something like _‘don’t try to teach your grandma to suck eggs.’_  
  
Jensen remembers his Grandmother biting it out to him when he was younger and trying to subtlety hover over the oblivious yet increasingly senile older woman as she kneaded dough with one hand and hovered uncertainly between the grill and oven dials with the other.  
  
Jensen never did have the heart to tell her that he wasn’t trying to make her suck anything. He was just under his momma’s instructions not to let Grandma set fire to the kitchen, _again_. He remembers the saying, though; like he remembers most of his grandmother’s advice. For Evelyn Ackles was a wise old lady, accidental arson attacks notwithstanding.  
  
That’s why years later, at 31, sitting in a trendy yuppie bar opposite his best friend’s fiancé, Jensen’s dead Grandmother’s voice echoes loudly in his head.  
  
And for the life of him, he can’t even think of one plausible excuse.  
  
“Of course you have to be a groomsman!” Genevieve is saying, gesticulating over the luminous cocktail glass in front of her. “You’re funny and smart and cute and you’ve known him _forever_ …”  
  
“Five years,” Jensen mumbles into the fancy imported beer that he hasn’t drank out of yet “I’ve known him for five years.”  
  
“ _Exactly_!”  
  
It seems he’s only fuelling Genevieve’s eagerness with his incoherent mumbling, so he decides to stop and uses the lag in the conversation to decide just how long he has to sit there before he can escape to the dive bar down the street, meet up with Chris, and drink American beer out of dirty bottles, sitting on a bar stool like a normal human being.  
  
“You can even give a speech,” Genevieve continues. “You’ll have tons of funny stories to tell…”  
  
“Just none involving bodily fluid, m’kay? People’ll still be eating.”  
  
So far, Jared has been largely silent, looking about as out of place in the expensively draped corner table as Jensen feels. He's stopped picking at his thumbnail long enough to grab the reigns of the conversation from his fiancé, though, shooting Jensen a boyish grin from across the divide.  
  
Jensen fights the urge to remind them just how _many_ stories involving body fluid he could divulge, if pushed, but Genevieve surges on and the scenes flashing blindingly hot and heavy behind Jensen’s eyes dissolve.  
  
“And honestly, Jensen, I think people will start to suspect something if you don’t…”  
  
Jared, on the other hand, seems to have forgotten that Jensen knows anything; or more likely, is pointedly ignoring it, if Jensen’s knowledge and judgment of Jared are as good as Genevieve claim they are.  
  
Jensen continues to pick at the bowl of pretzels in the middle of the table as Genevieve summarises her argument/presentation/emotional attack by ticking points off on her delicate fingers. “So, smart,” _finger_ , “cute,” _finger_ , “funny stories,” _finger_.  
  
Brown bambi eyes swing up towards Jensen and he tries really hard to pretend they have no effect on him. “And really, he’ll so do it for you, Jen,” she says earnestly, her eyes flicking to Jared where he lounges beside her. “Won’t you, babe?”  
  
Jared’s overly enthusiastic nod is purely for show, but his grin is taunting “’Cause you’re my BFF, Jenny.”  
  
Genevieve nods encouragingly, flicking her eyes back to Jensen. “So come on and say yes already because we have to be at the airport to pick up Jared’s parents like, ten minutes ago!”  
  
Jensen fails to stifle a groan into his upturned hands; he doesn’t even need to peek through his fingers to see Jared’s knowing smirk directed at the top of his head.  
  
“You do realise this counts as emotional terrorism?” he asks, tiredly but completely serious as Jared smacks kisses at him over the table.  
  
Genevieve’s tiny shoulder shrugs nonchalantly and she lifts the fruity, gin-soaked concoction for a sip. “Whatever works!” She smiles suddenly around the rim. “ _Jenny_.”  
  
Jensen’s hands drop flat to the table and he takes a second to study the table cloth before lifting his eyes back to the couple.  
  
He’s the obvious choice, that’s true. Reliable alternatives and potential understudies are sparse, considering he’s the only one of the handful of Jared’s friends who’s likely to stay sober until _at least_ 6.30 (Mike), hold no photographic evidence of wacky childhood phases (Jeff), and refrain from slipping any erotic or pornographic references into his speech in lieu of light humour (Chad).  
  
Jensen really _is_ a prime candidate. Hell, he would have been the first to volunteer if things had been drastically different. And Jared’s still sitting there chewing pretzels, eyes fixed on him, silently daring him to give any excuse to back out. To give all the excuses Jensen’s pretty certain Jared has been waiting to hear since the second he’d called him that morning and told him of Genevieve’s request to meet up for drinks that had sounded suspiciously like an order of attendence.  
  
But Jensen will be damned if he’s going to be the one to break. Not when he’s been practically wrestled into a corner with this thing.  
  
“Sure. I’d be glad to do it,” he hears himself saying “It won’t be a problem.”  
  
 _Because you don’t teach your Grandma to suck eggs._  
  
And Jensen is the standing champion of lying out his ass.  
  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
The next morning brings possible temperatures in the high 80s, an incessant buzzing somewhere to the left of Jensen’s head, and the distinct feeling that letting Chris talk him into those last two tequila shots had been a _very_ bad idea.  
  
With a sound between a groan and a whimper, Jensen manages to manoeuvre his hand out of the sheets and snatch his phone from the nightstand on only his second try.  
  
“H’lo?” He winces at the sound of his scratchy voice and clears it uselessly to try a more coherent greeting, but the caller apparently found the first to be ample.  
  
“Get your ass up!”  
  
Jensen risks cracking an eyelid painfully as the shrill, familiar voice ploughs his ear. The warm sun is already nudging between the blinds, and he can hear familiar scratching outside his bedroom door.  
  
“ _Mike_ …?” He turns his eye a fraction to the left and squints at the red digits glaring back at him. 7.15. “Are you kiddin’ me?”  
  
Mike’s snort isn’t even remotely delicate as Jensen works on opening his other eyelid.  
  
“Are _you_? If I have to suffer through one more afternoon of lapels and fucking cummerbunds, then I’m dragging your ass down with me!”  
  
The other eye finally opens and Jensen lets out a sigh as Mike’s voice evens out on the other line. “Oh, and if you talk to Tommy, make sure he remembers those colour swatches he’s supposed to bring for _Bridezilla_ , would ya? I value my eyebrows and fear her wrath!”  
  
The line clicks off suddenly and Jensen drops his phone to the sheets, lifting his hands to his face and trying to rub away the ache there as his stomach lurches painfully and rolls twice.  
  
The scratching intensifies as Jensen manages to pull himself into what he hopes is a mostly upright position and steady himself against the nightstand.  
  
Harley scuttles back from the door when Jensen pulls it open; head titled, his bambi eyes peering up at Jensen in a perfect mixture of confusion and judgment. And if Jensen’s head hadn’t been stuffed full of damp cotton and his vision hadn’t been grainy, he could have sworn the dog looks him over and smirks.  
  
Jensen holds Harley’s gaze for a beat before he pushes off the door frame, brushing past the pup on his way to the kitchen.  
  
“Yeah, whatever,” he mumbles unnecessarily as Harley falls into a trot beside him.  
  
Sadie is already waiting by the patio doors when Jensen feels his way along the hallway wall and falls out into the kitchen. Half a cup of coffee and two aspirins later, the dogs are running in the yard and his phone is buzzing again. It almost lightens his mood to hear a suitably groggy and strained voice on the other line when Jensen answers with a partial grunt.  
  
“ _Please_ tell me you have the colour swatches I’m supposed to bring?” Tom pleads on the other end.  
  
Jensen doesn’t.  
  
He figures the day can only climb upwards from there.  
  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
Sixty-five minutes later, Jensen pulls up curbside, his sunglasses pulled snugly down over his still-blurry eyes and a fresh cup of take-out coffee wedged firmly into the drinks holder. The dogs scramble eagerly in the backseat, clearly noting the familiar coordinates, and bound down the drive and around back as soon as Jensen lets them loose.  
  
Jensen leans back heavily against his truck for a moment, taking a deep breath and an even deeper gulp of coffee, and notes Mike and Tom’s cars already crowding the driveway; the men are probably somewhere inside, being bitched at for losing colour samples.  
  
The house is one of the smallest on the block, from what Jensen can see through the tall gates and looming bushes that line the road from midtown to the houses up on the hills. Jensen knows that it had been a compromise: Genevieve got the privacy and allure of the hot hills property market, and Jared got a yard for his dogs with a house small enough that he didn’t get lost every time he needed to use the bathroom.  
  
And it’s nice. All high ceilings and sloping back decks and marble counter tops. Smaller than the one in Vancouver, but far nicer than the one-bedroom beach condo that Jensen still pays rent through his teeth for because _‘God forbid he sign his name to something,_ ’ as his mother likes to say. Echoed by Danneel, lately.  
  
And far fancier than the one he and Jared had been renting before everything had gone to shit.  
  
So yeah, it’s nice. _Too_ nice, apparently, for two heaving, shedding beasts to roll around in with a house full of out-of-towners, 500 party favours, and $2000 worth of pink orchids. And even if he _did_ look like he was going to faint at the mere suggestion, Jensen never thought he’d actually witness the day Jared agreed to voluntarily ship his babies off to the other side of town for the two-week ‘run-up’ period (because that was what it’s called, according to Genevieve — like it’s an Olympic sport or something).  
  
Then again, Jensen has witnessed a lot of things in the last couple of months that he never thought he would.  
  
He takes longer than necessary to walk up the driveway, and even longer dragging his feet around back; by the time he gets to the door, the dogs are running excited circles around a crowded kitchen and Jared is sprawled on the linoleum, laughing his ass off.  
  
Jensen props himself against the frame of the open door to admire the view for a secretive minute before Jeff loudly announces his arrival, snapping everyone’s attention towards him and ruining the moment.  
  
“Jen! It’s about time, dude!”  
  
Sherri looks up from the kitchen counter where she had been frowning intensively over a brochure of some sort and Jensen watches her face break into the same grin she’d blessed her son with.  
  
“Jensen! _Honey_!” She reaches him in three excited bounds and Jensen bends down to accept the hug he’s immediately smothered with, as her tiny frame presses against his larger one. She smells of vanilla and pancake batter and Jensen smiles into her hair.  
  
“Look at you!” She pulls back to look him over with a grin, smoothing down the front of his wrinkled shirt and flattening a wayward spike of hair. “You get more handsome every time I see you!” She pats his chest with a tiny hand and Jensen is once again left to wonder how the hell she managed to produce such huge ass kids.  
  
Jensen shoots her one of his patent _aw, shucks_ Texas boy smiles, making her smile happily, as any Texas mother would.  
  
Of course, it takes another home-grown Southern boy to see right through that one and call him on it; since Jared is far too busy being licked to death by his dogs to pay much attention to the meet-and-greet going on by his door, the responsibility falls elsewhere.  
  
“Well I saw him five hours ago and he looked like crap then, too.” Chris breezes into the room with a plate full of bacon and waffles.  
  
Sherri shoots Chris a sidelong warning look that has the potential to stop traffic and turns back to Jensen with a beaming smile, pinching his cheek. “Don’t listen to him, hon.”  
  
Her beam dims a little as she gives him an ever-so-subtle once over and notes his wrinkled T-shirt, clammy skin, and Bono shades. “But maybe you do look a little shaky,” she concedes, her sunshine-Mom tone never dimming as she grabs his elbow and steers him to the nearest stool. “Sit down and I’ll whip you up some eggs, huh? Your favourite? Over easy on rye, right?”  
  
“Right,” Jensen mumbles, settling on the stool as Sherri starts to rattle though cupboards and Chris and Jeff roll their eyes at each other from across the room.  
  
Jensen promptly ignores them and sips his coffee. He’ll take all the ‘momma’s boy’ jibes they can muster. Sherri’s eggs are awesome and he feels sick, goddammit!  
  
“Where’s that pretty little girl of yours, honey?” Sherri’s saying, her back to them as she cracks eggs into a skillet and simultaneously butters bread “Is she coming to the rehearsal dinner tomorrow?”  
  
Jensen carefully ignores Jared’s eyes and forces a smile. “Uh, no, actually—I don’t think she’ll make it. They’re behind on filming, so she might be stuck on the east coast for another couple of weeks.”  
  
He leaves out the part of her explanation that went something like: _“Why the fuck do I want to go to a rehearsal dinner? It’s bad enough I’ll have to go to ours.”_  
  
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Sherri sounds at least marginally saddened by the news, despite having met Danni all of twice. She turns with her spatula raised and tweaks her eyebrow. “You want me to put a little cheese on these, baby?”  
  
Jensen just smiles tightly and nods.  
  
Jared smacks loud kisses to his dogs’ heads before pulling himself off the floor to lean casually, dog-haired and slobber-ridden, against the counter next to Jensen.  
  
“ _Spoiled_ ,” he mumbles near Jensen’s ear, loud enough to receive an over-the-shoulder glare from his mother; and suddenly all of Jensen’s senses are focused on the warm, familiar contact between their arms.  
  
“Where’s your dad, anyway?” Jensen wonders out loud, clearing his throat and shifting a margin of an inch over on the stool. He makes a point of redirecting all his attention towards Sherri. “And Megan? Did she come up with you guys?”  
  
“Gerry’s out checking the foundations of the new decking.” Sherri is busy flipping the eggs but turns to offer a roll of her eyes that’s been perfected by 35 years of marriage. “He may be some time.”  
  
Jared’s father likes to check things. Jensen doesn’t know if it’s a typical accountant thing to make sure every board and nail is arranged in an orderly fashion, but Gerald Padalecki never feels at ease until he’s knocked and poked at every elevated wooden structure in any room he enters. His wife finds it exasperating, his daughter finds it highly embarrassing, and Jared, for some reason, gets a major kick out of it, encouraging his father’s behaviour by pointing out any new or progressing piece of DIY in the surrounding area and following Gerry around while he knocks on walls and makes humming sounds, jumping up and down on random floorboards.  
  
Jensen usually just takes it all with good humor and tries to seem politely interested and vaguely knowledgeable when Gerry inevitably returns to relay his surveyor’s report to anyone within earshot.  
  
Jared leans sideways, down into Jensen’s personal space, and lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “And Meg’s in the back feigning interest in colour swatches and magnolia bouquets.”  
  
Sherri turns to shoot Jared another glare and Jensen wonders how she doesn’t have a headache from glaring so hard all morning.  
  
“She’s excited, Jared!” she snaps insistently, sliding the eggs onto a waiting plate on the counter. She wipes her hands down her apron and smirks wryly. “You know…on the inside.”  
  
Jensen chuckles, ignoring the way it makes his skull throb like a mother, and accepts the plate Sherri pushes over with mumbled thanks.  
  
“Well.” Jeff, who’s largely been ignoring the surrounding room in favour of reading the morning gazette, pushes off his stool and throws the paper to the table in front of him. “I, for one, am ready to get this show on the road, little brother.” He claps his hands loudly and makes a shooing motion. “Round up your harem. Let’s roll.”  
  
“We’re waiting on Murray,” Chris mumbles, shovelling forkfuls of breakfast into his mouth and causing Sherri to tut and prop her hip against the counter; arms folded over her chest.  
  
Jensen always finds it fascinating the way she can walk into any house, hotel room, or trailer rental occupied by her son and completely take over the kitchen in seconds. Jensen remembers his own mother reorganising his tin cupboards on her last visit and puts it all down to Texas mothering. It must be in some guide book they hand out at hospital maternity wards or something.  
  
Jensen is still busy trying to slap Jared’s hands away from his toast when Sherri saunters over to them and leans her elbows on the counter beside his plate.  
  
“So Jensen, I haven’t received my invite for _your_ big day yet.”  
  
It’s not causal conversation. It’s a point-blank question hidden under suspicion, and Jensen feels a telltale heat start to creep up his neck. Sherri’s voice is teasing, but her eyes hold something that Jensen doesn’t even want to try and decipher this early when he’s still partially hung-over.  
  
“Are you blowing us off?”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes, fondness taking over everything else for a second. Padalecki’s tend to have that effect on him. “Of course you’re invited.” He clears his throat uneasily and feels Jared shift away beside him. “We just, uh, haven’t got around to sending the final invitations out yet, I guess.”  
  
Sherri frowns. “You haven’t sent the invites yet?”  
  
“Well, no…but…” Jensen flounders, casting his eyes down to his plate and forcing himself to be completely enraptured by eggs and bread. “All the main ones have gone out, sure. You know, the execs and bigwigs…” He shoves a forkful of food in his mouth and smiles around it in a way he hopes is perceived as adorably charming. “You don’t need an invite. You’re totally invited.”  
  
That seems to mollify Sherri slightly; she only shoots a half-questioning glance at Jared, who is suddenly enthralled by the dogs’ food bowls.  
  
“You must have one hell of a wedding planner to be so blasé, baby.” She tilts her head towards the hall. “Poor Genevieve’s having kittens back there trying to match centrepieces with button holes and screaming at that poor floppy-haired boy, and _she_ has a team of fifty professionals buzzing around with walkie-talkies and clipboard things.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I think we’re going for the whole laid-back wedding approach…”  
  
“Yeah, and you know how proficient Jenny is with a floral display, Mrs. P.”  
  
Jensen shoots Chris an irritated glance. “What are you even doing here?”  
  
Chris sits back smugly. “We’re the certified entertainment, dude.” He spreads his arms out “Can’t turn up at a fancy shindig like this looking all ruffled and hick-like.”  
  
“A new suit won’t stop you porking your cousin, dude,” Mike mumbles through a mouthful of egg.  
  
Chris glares at Mike across the counter. “Yeah, but it’ll help me pork your momma, asshole!”  
  
Mike launches a chewed-up piece of bacon at Chris’s head and Sherri manages to intervene with an artistically flicked dishtowel and a slap to each of their heads before Chris can counterattack with a forkful of egg.  
  
Jared takes the distraction as an opportunity to skirt the counter and lean back behind Jensen’s stool.  
  
Jensen feels the hand on his back before Jared’s warm breath brushes at his ear.  
  
“I missed you.”  
  
Jensen’s torn between telling him the truth and stating the obvious, which, in this case, are probably two very different things.  
  
“Jared, this really isn’t the time.” The obvious wins out.  
  
Jared’s laugh rumbles through his spine, and Jensen stays stoic and forward-facing, pretending he can’t hear the bitter undertone in the otherwise familiar sound. “It’s the only time we’ve _had_ in the past two weeks.”  
  
Jensen wants to tell him that this is far from _his_ fault. That this is anything _but_ his idea of a perfect situation. That he misses him, too.  
  
Instead, he leans back, just a fraction of an inch into Jared’s splayed hand, and shakes his head subtly. “Jared…”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Luckily, a shout from the door interrupts the moment. Mike and Chris stop yelling long enough to whip around and find Chad leaning casually against the door frame, his arms crossed and his face impassive. “If you ladies are done picking sand out of your vaginas, I’d like to move this dress-up session along so I can get back and re-attach my balls before my date tonight.”  
  
“I can’t even count the amount of offensive terms in that greeting, Chad,” Sherri says distractedly, wiping down the food-littered counter with her dishtowel as Mike, Chris, and Jeff right themselves and yell for Tom as they shuffle towards the door.  
  
Jensen slides off his stool without looking back at the man shadowing him and drops a kiss onto Sherri’s cheek as he passes.  
  
“You look after these hoodlums, Jensen Ross!” she yells after him with a teasing laugh as Jensen nods reliably and swipes a piece of bacon off a grumbling Chris’ shoulder.  
  
“Mama, he’s the _worst one_ ,” Jensen hears Jared whisper conspicuously on his way out.  
  
He can’t help but grin all the way to the car.  
  
  
:::  
  
  
“I fucking _hate_ blue.”  
  
Jensen grits his teeth as Chad’s voice floats in from the next cubicle and he shoots a hesitant glance towards the curtain, beyond which a group of ushers and page boys are being dragged around the store by their frazzled mothers.  
  
“It’s _navy_!” Jensen insists, reaching out and slamming his hand against the adjoining wall with a hard, warning thump. “And would you stop with the cursing? There are kids outside!”  
  
“So?” Chad counters disinterestedly “They should learn to mind their own fucking business.”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes and shrugs his jacket on with more vigour than is physically necessary. It’s navy and fitted, expensive-looking — real classy, but then, Jensen expected no less from the Padalecki Planning and Publicity Co. Jared’s agent is more stubborn than Maggie and twice as hard to please. Jensen won’t be surprised if Genevieve’s dress is being hand-beaded by blind Pyrenees nuns and flown in by the military.  
  
“Now ya see, that’s how you wear a suit, boy!” Chris exclaims when Jensen pulls back the curtain and steps out into the main fitting area where the rest of them are lounging on sofas in various states of undress.  
  
Tom looks him over and scowls at his own suit hanging from one of the dressing room rails. “I’m gonna look like a page boy.”  
  
Mike cackles and reaches out to ruffle his hair. “Aw, Tommy, don’t compare yourself to Jenny-boy here.” He looks over at Jensen, mirth dancing in his eyes, and sweeps his gaze lewdly up and down Jensen’s body. “That ass was _made_ to be tailored.”  
  
Jensen scowls and tugs at one of the sleeves, turning towards one of the full length mirrors lining the walls. “I hate blue.”  
  
“That’s what I’m tellin’ ya,” Chad hollers from the changing room, tugging the curtain back so they can all watch him emerge in a shirt, jacket, and green chequered boxer shorts. “Who chose this shit?”  
  
“I did.” Jensen whips his head around to find Jared grinning wide in the entrance, still in his ratty t-shirt and jeans. He glances at Chad with a raised eyebrow. “Why? You don’t like ‘em?”  
  
Chad snorts and throws his arms out wide. “ _No_ , Jay, I think I’m gonna get tons of pussy looking like one of the fucking Four Tops.”  
  
Mike snorts and sweeps his hand out towards Jared, who’s leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. “So why aren’t you in costume, Sugar Pie?”  
  
Jensen pretends he can’t feel Jared’s gaze lingering on him, pretends he can’t see the way his eyes run swiftly over his contours through the mirror. He flicks his gaze up to catch him out through the glass, but Jared is already smirking over at Mike.  
  
“ _Please_ , with the Padalecki build and finesse?” Jared shrugs nonchalantly and feigns loftiness. “Me and Jeff were measured and suited weeks ago, dude, we just had to come get trimmed and tucked. I look fucking fly, too, so you haters better watch your mouths.” Then he turns a stink eye to where Chris, Mike and Tom are slouched, looking bored and marginally unimpressed. “Why aren’t you dressed? The lady wants you in there getting poked at as soon as Jeff’s done.”  
  
Chad is still frowning at his reflection, but he breaks away to stomp back over to his dressing room and grab his pants off the hanger, looking especially ridiculous in a baggy suit jacket, socks, and underwear. “Whatever, dude, it’s your funeral,” he grumbles as he breezes past them and out of the fitting room.  
  
Jensen is trailing out behind everyone when Jared’s arm reaches out and grabs his wrist, making him stutter to a halt. Jensen looks down at the contact, his eyes on the long, familiar fingers curled around his exposed skin.  
  
  
  
 _“You know, I don’t think we’re supposed to take this thing off set.”  
  
The interior was slippery with sweat, the windows fogged with breath and heat. Jensen’s back slipped against the warm leather as Jared shifted above him, his dark silhouette shadowed against the deep black of night outside. They were miles out of town, miles from anywhere, really. And nothing to see but skylines and the Vancouver lights a hundred feet below.  
  
Grand theft auto had never felt so good.  
  
Jared’s grin was wicked as he ran his hand up Jensen’s splayed arms and anchored his wrists above him in the tight circle of his fingers.  
  
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be doing a lot of what we’re doing tonight, Jen,” he whispered against Jensen’s open lips._  
  
  
  
Jared looks up, his eyes meeting Jensen’s, and Jensen doesn’t think he’s ever seen them so glassy before.  
  
The next time he blinks, he’s pressed up against the wall of his fitting cubicle, a heavy, warm body pressed against the length of his and a hand tugging roughly at his dress pants.  
  
Jensen feels he should really express some kind of outward reprimand and maybe slap the hand away in outrage, but Jared’s mouth is on his in the next breath and all thoughts of scolding and ramifications dissolve as their tongues touch.  
  
“So fucking hot, I swear to God, Jen — nearly came in my pants when I walked in…”  
  
Jensen’s pants are open, half pulled down, and Jared’s huge hand eases Jensen’s cock free in five seconds flat. Jensen groans, his hands flying to Jared’s shoulders to hold on as Jared’s mouth descends on the sensitive junction of his neck and he continues to mumble nonsense words into the wet skin.  
  
“Wait…” Jensen pants, pushing half-heartedly at Jared’s shoulder even as he rocks his hips into Jared’s eager grip. “Wait…Jared. _Stop_.”  
  
Jared does, immediately. His hand falls away and he takes a step back, away from Jensen’s body.  
  
“What?” His hair is ruffled, the thin material of his T-shirt clinging to his shoulders, and his mouth is red and bruised from the kisses. Jensen tries to catch his breath and remind himself exactly what his point had been.  
  
“We can’t,” he breaths finally, suspecting he could possibly have elaborated further if his cock hadn’t been hanging out of his pants. “We just…you _know_ we can’t…”  
  
He rights his pants and shoulders past Jared before he can wipe the startled, confused look off his face.  
  
Jensen practically falls into the fitting area to find Chris and Chad already huddled in the corner using explicit hand movements and shifting their eyes. Nothing short of excessive alcohol and X-rated behaviour ever results from Chris and Chad’s camaraderie and Jensen feels it best to nip this in the bud before it has the chance to take effect.  
  
“Get your clothes on and hurry this up, assholes. I’d prefer not to spend the rest of the afternoon looking at Murray’s chicken legs,” he bites out, throwing himself down onto the nearest sofa to watch the tailors finish poking at Tom and Mike. His suit feels itchy and suffocating and he tugs at the jacket uncomfortably.  
  
He pretends it has nothing to do with the hand prints he can still feel burning hot and intense through the navy material.  
  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
As it turns out, Jensen really needn’t have bothered trying to counter anything. Alcohol and improper behaviour are in abundance tonight, despite his best efforts to the contrary.  
  
Jeff is taking especially kindly to the ‘all boys, no rules, wife-less for a night’ regime; Jared had turned purple with hysterics when one particularly luscious brunette in the last strip joint had draped herself over his big brother and offered him a ‘private showing.’ Jeff had almost overturned the table in an attempt to dislodge her from his lap and then promptly retired to the parking lot to call Jules and check in.  
  
“You know, I’ve never actually been to a strip club before,” Jared’s saying; his voice is loud over the pumping music, his limbs loose and easy, the way they should be after countless beers and five rounds of tequila shots “It’s nice. Kind of like a carnival. With bikinis. And strobe lights.”  
  
After the fourth round, Chad had disappeared into the bathroom with a tall blond waitress who, in retrospect, may or may not have been a guy. Considering they’ve been gone for almost forty minutes, he must be doing a thorough investigation on the subject.  
  
At some point, Jared had broken away from the group and migrated over to the corner booth where Jensen is pressing himself up against the wall. It isn’t surprising. It’ll never change. Jared can fish him out of any dive bar, any network party they’ve ever been to. They always end up sharing beers in some corner together. _Always_. Jensen doesn’t know why he had thought their bachelor parties would be any different.  
  
Their backs are pressed against opposite sides of the booth and they’re facing each other, legs drawn up; the toes of their boots brush when they shift. They’d spent the last half hour pointing out dancers and waitresses in various states of undress, contemplating which ones were married, or gay, or mothers. Which of the skanky-looking lap dancers really did like it rough and dirty and which ones were faking it for the dollar bills in their panty elastic.  
  
“So how d’ya think you did it?” Jensen notes the slur in his words, the sluggish way his hands have started to move as Jared, slightly blurry across from him, raises a dirty eyebrow.  
  
“Not _that_.” Jensen rolls his eyes wearily. “You know - popped the question.”  
  
Understanding dawns and Jared chuckles, shifting his eyes to the label he’s picking at on the bottle held loosely between his knees.  
  
“Ah, I dunno.” He shrugs, his eyes following the movement of his fingers, only quickly glancing up at Jensen through the dark bangs guarding his eyes. “Probably something awesome and unbelievably romantic. I tend to be like that.”  
  
Jensen snorts around a gulp of beer and swallows it down roughly. Across the booth, Jared’s eyes are dancing with mirth through the hazy fog of the bar. His hair is damp with sweat, his hands moving swiftly up and down the bottle and a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and Jensen thinks he could sit and watch him like this forever.  
  
“Besides, I think Gen whipped up some bullshit about Paris and anniversaries.”  
  
It probably isn’t his sudden inebriation that fails to hide Jensen's smirk, although that’s exactly what he’ll blame it on if anyone asks.  
  
 _Paris_. Of course it would be fucking Paris. Although why they couldn’t have just gone with his and Danneel’s standard response of _“Sorry, it’s private”_ is beyond him. Short, sweet, believable. And on top of that, it doesn’t prompt Jensen to swallow down his own bile.  
  
Then again, it’s probably far better than what really happened. Namely, twelve pissed-off publicity executives telling them _“Hey, remember those cute little girlfriends you pull out for film premieres? Well, mazel tov, guys, you’ve just proposed!”_  
  
“Sounds nice” Jensen lets his voice trail off as he catches sight of Chris and Steve on the other side of the stage, cackling and pushing fistfuls of bills into a terrified-looking Jason’s hand and pointing towards a tiny redheaded waitress sporting nipple tassels.  
  
He looks up to find Jared staring back at him.  
  
“I would’ve done it at the peaks,” he says suddenly, yelling above the bass and tempo of the sound system even though the booth cushions some of the excess noise. His eyes never waver from Jensen’s face “At night. With all of Vancouver watching us down there”  
  
For a second, Jensen thinks he can’t breathe; then his flight-or-fight response kicks in and he remembers to suck in lungs full of smoky oxygen. He remembers to do what he does best.  
  
“What the hell would Gen want with the peaks?” he scoffs, turning his face away to take a gulp of beer so he won’t have to watch the fallout. “It’s just dirt and wind. Hell, I’ve seen her _camping_ , dude, not a good look.”  
  
“Yeah,” he hears Jared murmur, “I guess.” And he thinks Jensen doesn’t remember. Jensen can tell by the defeated mumble to his voice, the way he dips his gaze back to the shredded label.  
  
Jensen remembers everything, right down to the smell of motor oil and their giddy laughter as they gunned the stolen car right out of the lot and onto the Vancouver streets.  
  
  
 _“You know, I don’t think we’re supposed to take this thing off set.”_  
  
  
“Hey.” Jensen says suddenly, kicking out at Jared’s boot a little and watching him look up through his hair. “You wanna get out of here?”  
  
Jensen can feel the liquor strumming through his veins, pumping his blood faster; can feel the heat of bar prickling his skin and making him sweat. He feels something itching at his insides, pushing him into motion.  
  
He watches Jared’s eyes cross a little in confusion as Jensen pushes his bottle onto the table and starts to shuffle out from the seat.  
  
“Uh, yeah. Alright. Where’re we going?”  
  
Jensen smiles wickedly and reaches back under the cover of the table to wrap his fingers around Jared’s belt buckle to tug.  
  
“Home”  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
“I’m worried about God.”  
  
Jensen swallows the urge to die laughing, and tries to school his expression into one of understanding at Jared’s completely serious face looming above him.  
  
Normal people would be worried about their mothers, about their careers, about the press. Not Jared. No, Jared is worried about _God_.  
  
It’s so unbelievably characteristic of him that Jensen wants to cry.  
  
Jared is still staring down at him, completely undaunted. “You know, about lying.” He lowers his voice to a whisper, as if the big man himself is sleeping on the futon in the corner “ _On the Bible._ ”  
  
“Uh, Jay…” Jensen tries to deliver his point gently. “I think a few lies are the least of God’s worries, don’t you?” He pointedly directs his eyes lower and Jared follows his gaze down to where his dick is still pressed tightly against Jensen’s ass.  
  
He looks back up at Jensen with a smirk “Lying is a _sin_ , Jensen.”  
  
“So is lying with another _guy_ , Jared.”  
  
Jared bristles immediately. “Not necessarily.”  
  
“Yes, necessarily. It’s there in black and white parchment, buddy, thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind, it is an abomination.” He smirks. “Don’t try to out-Bible me, Jay, you’ll lose every time. You’ve met my dad, right?”  
  
Jared shifts, slipping off of Jensen and onto the sheets beside him. “ _My_ dad told me that it’s okay to sleep with people you love,” Jared says to the ceiling. Jensen breathes deep and tips his head to watch the side of Jared’s face.  
  
“He probably wasn’t talking about this, Jay.”  
  
Jensen startles a little when Jared turns his head, his clear eyes looking right through him.  
  
“Why? Because you don’t love me?”  
  
It’s a challenge outright - no bullshit, because you don’t teach your Grandma to suck eggs, and Jared has never perfected the art of subtlety.  
  
Jensen scoffs, feeling all the air in his chest settle, stale and threatening to suffocate him. He shoots Jared a sidelong look “ _Really_? You want to do this _now_?”  
  
Jared feigns innocence, twitching his naked shoulder into something resembling a shrug “Why not?”  
  
“Because it’s irrelevant” Jensen sighs tiredly, reaching down to tug the sheet up over his naked waist, just for something to do with his hands other than throttle the guy next to him.  
  
“It’s relevant to _me_.”  
  
“Jay, you think God’s emotional anguish is relevant to you and yet you’re still trying on tuxes and handing out invites.”  
  
The entire length of Jared’s body stiffens; his head snaps up and he stares stoically at the ceiling as his hands twitch into involuntary fists. Jensen’s known him long enough to know what that means. It’s the same stance he takes when someone asks about Sandy, when someone calls his momma’s chocolate pie anything less than outstanding, when the vet tries to tell him that feeding the dogs turkey bacon and Oreos probably isn’t the treat he perceives it to be.  
  
Jensen’s hit a nerve.  
  
“That’s not fair,” Jared spits at the ceiling, grinding his teeth. Jensen can hear the steady restraint he’s putting on the pitch of his voice. “You can’t use that as an excuse, you can’t use that against me! You know exactly why I’m doing this and it has nothing to do with me or Genevieve or God!”  
  
Jensen knows. He remembers every second, every word that fell from his mouth and onto the floor between them that night - while they'd been bone-tired and tightly wound from hours of meetings and interviews in Maggie’s office. He can hear every word echoing off their silent bedroom walls in the room they had slept in a lifetime ago.  
  
  
 _“You think that your big blockbuster muscle movies are still gonna be there when this gets out, Jared? You think that anyone’s going to tune in to watch two brothers who fuck during their lunch break?”  
  
“It won’t matter, Jensen.”  
  
“Of course it will! Don’t be so fucking naïve!”_  
  
  
“It has to be this way,” Jensen says, finally, once Jared has deflated enough to listen to reason. “You know that, right?”  
  
Jared tilts his head again so they’re almost nose to nose on the pillow. His mouth twitches into something like a smile.  
  
“You don’t get to choose who you love, Jensen,” he whispers, his voice steady and sure. “You just don’t.”  
  
  
 _“You think that love is going to matter to the Enquirer? You think that feelings are gonna count for anything when your parents find out? The show will be done, Jared. Your career will be done. And for what? For some fucked-up tryst that you thought was love?”_  
  
  
Jensen smirks and he can feel it twist, feel the bitterness in his words as they fall onto the pillow between them.  
  
“I guess we don’t get to choose who we marry, either.”  
  
  
 _“Look, it wasn’t like this was going anywhere. It’s not like it’s some huge surprise. You were always gonna marry her, Jared. I was always gonna marry Danni — this…this was just wasting time till then.”_  
  
  
Jared stares at him for a minute, his eyes huge and wide and steady. Then he blinks once and turns back to the ceiling “Yeah, I guess we don't.”  
  
  
 _“Yeah,” Jared said, dejectedly into the carpet, “I guess it was”_

 

 

_**Half of my heart is a shot gun wedding,  
To a bride with a paper ring  
And half of my heart is the part of a man  
Who’s never truly loved anything...** _

  
  
  
  
  
Jensen takes Danneel home for Christmas break. It isn’t the first time she’s been to Dallas, but it’s the first time he’s brought anyone home for the holidays.  
  
It goes pretty smoothly. His parents have always adored her, even though his nephews are still somewhat undecided.  
  
“She’s cool, Uncle Jen.” Logan nods and looks up from his Nintendo to shoot him a hopeful grin. “Is Jared coming? He said he’d teach me the Death Drain on Guitar Hero! Right, Linc?”  
  
Okay, maybe it’s the second time he’s brought someone home.  
  
Lincoln nods hopefully and Jensen ends up wrapping up five extra computer games to cushion the fact that they’re probably going have to play them with a girl that weekend.  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
They return to Supernatural in the New Year and things start to spiral out of control.  
  
Jensen isn’t sure anyone knows this, but Jared? He’s a pretty enthusiastic guy. He likes _a lot_ of things, and marriage? Well, he might be the size of a yeti and have arms that could crush a man’s clavicle with just one flex, but Jared Padalecki was raised on hardcore Disney. He knows the songs, he owns the box sets, and he completely believes the theme park is the happiest place on earth. He was Prince Charming to his little sister’s Cinderella at two consecutive Padalecki Halloween Parties, for Christ’s Sake.  
  
And Jensen? Well…Jensen prefers classic rock, in all honesty. He thinks Disney World is nothing but a cesspit of pink eye virus, and sure, he enjoys an occasional viewing of _Nemo_ with his nephews, because that shit? _Funny_. But on the whole, no, Jensen doesn’t get a warm, tingling feeling in his chest the way Jared does at the very mention of sleeping damsels and midnight balls and singing woodland creatures.  
  
But of course, Jared just _believing_ in Disney isn’t nearly enough. No, Jared has to push his Disney love on every half-willing PA and sound guy within arm’s reach, and really, after watching a group of 300-pound, tattooed grips perform an impromptu a cappella version of ‘ _Kiss the Girl,_ ’ Jensen has to resign himself to the fact that there aren’t many people in the world who can resist Jared’s infectious exuberance about such things.  
  
This is, perhaps, the only explanation for how Jensen has found himself surrounded by hundreds of crew members and unfamiliar extras four hours into his first day.  
  
“Thanks, guys!” Jared is grinning so wide Jensen thinks he’s swallowed a clothes hanger. He nudges at Jensen, who’s standing stoically beside him, staring wide-eyed at the five foot sponge cake with their names iced on it.  
  
“We’re just so happy for you guys!” Shannon’s saying, already slicing rectangles out of the cake and passing it out to grabby hands. “I mean, both of you getting engaged at practically the same time! What are the odds of that? It just calls for cake and parties, doesn’t it?” She grins giddily.  
  
Jensen likes Shannon. She’s quirky and funny and she can drink Chris under the table. In fact, the only time anyone becomes acutely aware that Shannon is actually a _girl_ is when she’s presented with a baby or an engagement ring.  
  
Jared grins back and bounces on his toes as he’s handed an over-sized portion of sponge cake and frosting. “To weddings and babies, bitches.” He hollers, and then meets one of the key grips in an exuberant high five.  
  
Jensen suppresses the urge to roll his eyes and takes his cake back to his trailer.  
  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
Jensen has mastered the art of table setting and one-handed flower arranging while keeping a continuous stream of steaming coffee firmly in the other at all times. He’s not yet close to mastering the art of public speaking.  
  
“All you have to do is smile for two hours and then say some crap about marriage being the ultimate act of commitment.”  
  
Jensen turns a sour eye to where Chris is trying to fit ninety people in pin formation onto twenty tables made for four.  
  
“It’s a fucking wedding vow, not a Shakespearean sonnet,” Jensen barks back, watching his friend stab a pin haphazardly into the seating chart.  
  
“Same thing.”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes and goes back to staring at the stretch of taunting white paper. Across from him, Chris doesn’t seem to be having much more creative success.  
  
“This is fucking impossible.” He throws the box of pins aside in surrender. “You need more tables or fewer people.”  
  
Jensen grins momentarily around the pencil he’s chewing on as Danneel shoots them the stink eye from across the room where she and her mother are trying to drape cream taffeta across the windows of the reception hall.  
  
So far, Danneel has been pretty cool. If it was up to her, they probably would have eloped to Vegas and been married by Elvis in The Little White Chapel and then gone out for waffles.  
  
But it isn’t up to them. And there are procedures to be followed, _apparently_. Each one seeming to grate more and more on Danni’s nerves. Judging by the death glare Jensen's receiving, cream taffeta seems to be on the list.  
  
She seemed more excited about the waffles, in all honesty.  
  
“Shouldn’t you be an expert at this shit?” Jensen mumbles, trying to hold his grin until Danni turns away to convey some false sense that everything is right on schedule. He holds little sympathy for her, really. Speeches trump taffeta. Everytime. “You’re a country western singer, you breathe lovesick tragedy - weddings should be your bread and butter, dude.”  
  
Chris doesn’t even attempt the façade. “If you’re so damn set on tragedy, why are you writing your vows?” He smirks, thick eyebrows twitching "Hell, why are you even getting married in the first place?"  
  
“Uh, because I’m a committed kind of guy?” Jensen deadpans, doodling a smiling ladybug on the corner of his blank paper “And because it’s what happens when two agents with the same mindset conspire with a network company.”  
  
He leaves out the part where writing his own vows may be just enough to dampen the whole ‘lying in the face of God’ situation. That maybe, if he tries hard enough, he can twist his own words into something resembling the truth.  
  
“Speaking of conspiring…”  
  
Jensen’s pencil pauses midair as he looks up to where Chris is looking at him brazenly over a mountain of upturned pins and paper. “Are we actually supposed to be pretending this is a good idea? You know, like, ignorantly supportive and shit?”  
  
Jensen tries to act naïve but just can’t fake another emotion until he’s inhaled another cup of coffee. “Yes”  
  
Chris flicks at a pin that goes whizzing past Jensen’s left arm and bounces off the wall behind them. “So it’s probably not my place to tell you that this is _all_ kinds of fucked up.”  
  
Jensen goes back to shading antennas. “No”  
  
Chris shrugs and slumps back in his chair “I just think it’s a little reckless is all.”  
  
Jensen quirks an eyebrow, unimpressed “This is coming from you? Hell, it must be.”  
  
Chris doesn’t look deterred “It’s just…it seems like settling.”  
  
Jensen’s pencil pauses, but he doesn’t look up, doesn’t dare.  
  
“I mean, Danni’s a great girl, hot as hell, man, and you’ve had a good run with her, but…it just seems like you’re settling for something. For the rest of your life. And yeah, I get it, Jen, I do, but…”  
  
Chris’ voice softens, quietens, and Jensen feels him lean in his chair towards him. “I don’t want you to turn around in ten years’ time and find yourself backed into a corner, still waiting to be happy.”  
  
Jensen resists the urge to tell him that some people wait for that forever. That sometimes in life, you _have_ to settle, and then tell yourself that maybe it’s what you wanted all along.  
  
Jensen doesn’t say that though. But only because it would have been completely pointless. Chris would never understand. He would never agree in a million years.  
  
“See,” Jensen croaks, finding a crooked, unsteady grin and shooting it off towards where Chris is looking at him with steady, imploring blue eyes, “Shakespearean tragedy. I knew you had it in you.”  
  
He pretends not to see Chris’s eyes dim a little as he slouches back. The whole conversation was far too country western to start with.  
  
:::  
  
  
The night before Jared’s wedding, Danneel calls him from the east coast. He can hear banging and catcalls in the background when he picks up, so he knows she’s between takes.  
  
“Hey. What’re you doing?”  
  
Jensen looks around at their empty living room, at the rerun playing on TV and the takeout boxes on the coffee table.  
  
“Nothing. What’s up?”  
  
She laughs softly and he can hear the teasing turn to her voice through the static of the reception. “Can’t a girl just call her fiancé to check in?”  
  
Jensen smirks, even though she can’t see, and lifts the beer in his hand up to his lips “You don’t check in, Danni.”  
  
Jensen thinks it’s different for them because they’re friends. They were friends long before they ever fell into bed, before any of this was ever a big deal. Jensen likes to think that they’ll be able to stay friends after the entire debacle goes to shit, but he’s never been that naïve.  
  
Danni's laughter turns genuine and she softens her voice. “Okay, yeah. I forgot who I was talking to for a second there.” Static fills the silence and then, “How’re you doing?”  
  
Jensen closes his eyes, tips his head back against the top of the sofa, and tries to will the pitying gentleness out of the voice in his ear. “I’m fine.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
Jensen forgets that she has a tendency to knows him better than he knows himself.  
  
Friends can be like that sometimes.  
  
  
:::  
  
  
  
“Jensen, honey, baby…” A box of white roses are pushed into his hand without further preamble and Sherri smiles, wide and sweet “Can you please go and take these to those apes my son is calling groomsmen? We’re set to start in twenty minutes and no one’s been buttonholed yet.”  
  
Jensen isn’t entirely certain what buttonholing entails, but he feels obliged to cart the box out of the room regardless. Mainly because he’s three seconds away from attacking the next person to throw a shrieking shit fit over hair pins and heated rollers.  
  
So far, he’s managed to keep under the radar. Genevieve was smuggled out into a dressing room in military frog-march formation at far-too-early o’clock, and the groomsmen had been segregated to the rooms off the reception area. Jensen had made sure to be the first dressed and managed to feign helpfulness for neigh on two hours now, driving relatives, pointing at table settings, carting button holes.  
  
He isn’t sure how much longer his lingering can go unquestioned.  
  
Chris is lent up against one of the cocktail waitresses when he brushes through the kitchens en route to the reception hall.  
  
“There you are,” he says when Jensen passes him “Christ, where’ve you been?”  
  
“Busy. Here, button hole yourself” Jensen thrusts a rose and a safety pin at him in passing and watches him look at them blankly.  
  
“Sounds dirty,” he leers, grinning wolfishly down at the giggling blond. “Maybe you should do the Honors, beautiful.”  
  
Jensen rolls his eyes and lifts the box to avoid a collision with a fast-moving hors d’oeuvre cart. “Whatever works. Where are they?”  
  
“Meeting room 2, dude,” he hears Chris say, although it’s mostly muffled by the exposed skin of Blondie’s neck.  
  
He knocks tentatively on the door, slightly apprehensive now that he’s ear-to-wood and can’t detect any shrieks or laughs or cursing. He hears a muffled reply that he takes to mean ‘sure, come on in’ and shoulders his way through the door, roses and pins still tucked under his arm.  
  
He stutters to a pause when the door clicks shut behind him. The room is empty save for Jared, who’s standing at the window with his back to the door. He doesn’t bother to turn around when he speaks.  
  
“I thought you bailed,” he says, his voice throaty and hoarse like when he caught strep throat last winter and insisted he could work it off because a little sore throat shouldn’t be enough to stop filming.  
  
Jensen clears his throat and shakes the box in his hands. “Nah, man. Uh, your Mom sent me with these button things.”  
  
Jared had ended up running a fever and spending three days vomiting bile. When Jensen had suggested that they go to the emergency room, his eyes had gone as wide as saucers and Jensen had felt like an asshole, his momma’s voice ringing loud in his head: ‘ _You gotta be cruel to be kind, Jensen.’_  
  
Jensen had sat with him all night and watched _Happy Days_ reruns on the fuzzy old portable above his hospital bed.  
  
“She gave me the buttonholes yesterday,” he says, and Jensen pauses, turns and sets the box down on one of the side tables near the door.  
  
“She must’ve forgotten.”  
  
She hadn’t. Jared had never perfected the art of subtlety, but that has nothing to do with his Momma. Sharon Padalecki is a friggin’ ninja when she wants to be.  
  
“She also gave a twenty minute warning, so…”  
  
“Do you remember that weekend we went to Aspen?”  
  
Jensen pauses when Jared cuts him off unapologetically. His back is still turned, the dark suit jacket stretched across his shoulders, his hands tucked deep into his pockets. His eyes are still directed out the window at the trees and white blankets of snow.  
  
“We stayed in that lodge and Harley caught the flu. I tried to teach you how to ski.” He lets out a slow, humourless chuckle and tilts his head slightly to the side so Jensen can see part of his profile “Dude, you were _weak_.”  
  
“Yeah,” Jensen murmurs, dropping his gaze to his dress shoes and the hideous floral rugs beneath them.  
  
Jensen remembers it all too well. He remembers that Jared had laughed at the thousands of layers Jensen insisted on wearing everywhere. How the dogs had gone ape shit over the white billows coating the backyard and refused to stop rolling in them until Harley had started to snuff and splutter. How the lodge had boasted two spacious double rooms, each with their own log fires, but Jensen could only tell you the colour of one set of sheets.  
  
He remembers how Jared’s eyes had danced every time he’d picked Jensen up off the ground and steadied him again “ _At least you fall like a trooper, dude._ ”  
  
Jensen remembers, sure he does, but remembering isn’t going to change jack shit now.  
  
“Twenty minutes,” he says again, almost a whisper, and turns towards the door.  
  
“It’s not wrong.” Jared’s voice stops Jensen with one hand on the handle. He turns back to find Jared facing him, hands free of his pockets, a determined, unwavering look on his face “It’s _not_.”  
  
He sounds so young then that Jensen wants to scream. Wants to lock the door and slip Jared right out the back, away from all of the mess — all the way back to Aspen, where he’d laughed and skied and been perfectly happy.  
  
Jensen says nothing and has the door open before he can fully decide which wrong Jared’s trying to right. Because really, where the hell would they start.  
  
In the hallway, he leans back against the wall to steady himself, to regroup. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, remembering all the things he’s supposed to.  
  
 _Baffle them with bullshit, son._  
  
It’s amazing, really, what people pick up without even realising it at all. The things you learn, the things you’re taught that can shape the rest of your life without you even knowing it.  
  
 _My dad told me it’s okay to sleep with someone you love._  
  
Jensen has a hundred little voices; whispers in his ear pulled from the dregs of his mind, the shadows of his childhood.  
  
 _Sure thing, honey. You go wave your magic wand._  
  
Jensen had been lucky, he supposes. He’d been surrounded by people his whole life. Wise people, smart people, people he could look up to. People he could learn from. And he had. He _still_ did.  
  
 _You don’t teach your grandma to suck eggs, Jensen dear._  
  
He’d learnt to act, to lie, to do his best. But no one ever taught him how to break someone’s heart. That had always seemed to come perfectly naturaly to him.  
  
 _At least you fall like a trouper, dude_  
  
He pushes off the wall, straightens his suit - brushes off all the imaginary lint and regrets clinging to the expensive fabric.  
  
 _You’ve got to be cruel to be kind, Jensen_ , his Momma had told him once. He always used to think that was bullshit.  
  
He doesn’t look back at the closed door as he backtracks down the hall.  
  
Time to turn on the smoke machine.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for spn_reversebang 2010. Based on emonyjade's 2016 prompt which she expanded into three videos.
> 
> Thanks to rozabellalove for all her kind help and suggestions and a huge thanks to my beta asher_k for being all kinds of awesome. Seriously, I couldn't have done it without her. And finally, thank you to my wonderful artist, emonyjade for giving me such a great prompt and being generally brilliant!


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